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Conference Organizers: Dira Sengwe
Dira Sengwe, a South African registered not for profit organization, is proud to serve as the International AIDS Society’s local partner for IAS 2009 in Cape Town. Dira Sengwe uses AIDS conferences as a conduit to create awareness and debate on AIDS related issues. It originated amongst a group of South African scientists and activists, who in the nineteen nineties banded together to draw the attention of the world to the plight of people living with HIV in Africa by organizing the highly successful 13th International AIDS Conference in Durban in 2000.
Subsequent to the AIDS 2000, Dira Sengwe focused its attention on AIDS issues in South Africa and continued to promote dialogue and raise awareness through the establishment of the South African AIDS Conference in 2003. This conference has rapidly grown into one of the largest national AIDS conferences in the world, attracting around 5,000 delegates.
Due to increasing regional participation, the next conference planned for 31 March to 3 April 2009 (www.saaids.com) will be formally launched as a regional event for the Southern African Region under the theme ‘Scaling up for Success’.
In light of this logical evolution from a national to regional focus it was also deemed important to again focus the attention of the international community on the issue of AIDS in Africa. AIDS 2000 was a catalyst for breaking down barriers to access, triggering a dramatic increase in treatment numbers worldwide. However, many challenges still remain, such as the need for affordable new generations of drugs, effective prevention strategies, and workable vaccines, to name but a few. IAS 2009 will again bring together the brightest and the best of the world’s scientific community in a part of the world facing the greatest challenge to help find answers to these challenges.
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Contact details
Dira Sengwe |
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